The 20 Mistakes that Kill Startups

Paul Graham, a well known blogger on the topics of VC and entrepreneurship, has a post on mistakes that kill startups. This guy is very insightful and writes very well. These mistakes are likely from first hand experience as he saw with the startups he invested in, so there are definitely value in that. Paul listed 18 mistakes, but I want to add two more from my own list (to make an even 20) and not coincidentally those two factors are also part of the title of this blog-- hype and fear.

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

The 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups
1. Single Founder
2. Bad Location
3. Marginal Niche
4. Derivative Idea
5. Obstinacy
6. Hiring Bad Programmers
7. Choosing the Wrong Platform
8. Slowness in Launching
9. Launching Too Early
10. Having No Specific User in Mind
11. Raising Too Little Money
12. Spending Too Much
13. Raising Too Much Money
14. Poor Investor Management
15. Sacrificing Users to (Supposed) Profit
16. Not Wanting to Get Your Hands Dirty
17. Fights Between Founders
18. A Half-Hearted Effort
19. Hype (From James' List)
20. Fear (From James' List)